Graw, Stephen --- "Preface" [2021] JCULawRw 1; (2021) 27 James Cook University Law Review i

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PREFACE

This volume of the James Cook University Law Review sees the return of the annual Mayo Lecture. In the normal course of events the lecture is organised and presented each year by the James Cook University Law Students’ Society in conjunction with, originally, the James Cook University Law School and, now, the Law Discipline within the University’s College of Business, Law and Governance, in honour of Mrs Marylyn Mayo, the university’s foundation law staff member.

Because of COVID-19 restrictions the Mayo Lecture was not held in 2020 but it was resurrected, albeit virtually, in 2021 when it was presented by Major General the Honourable Justice Paul Brereton, AM, RFD, a Judge of Appeal of the Supreme Court of New South Wales; Deputy President of the Defence Force Discipline Appeals Tribunal, Assistant Inspector-General of the Australian Defence Force and Deputy Chair of the New South Wales Law Reform Commission. We are very grateful to his Honour, first for agreeing to present the lecture, entitled ‘The International Law of Armed Conflict: The Australian Application,’ and, secondly, for permission to publish it in this year’s volume of the JCULR.

His Honour’s lecture is joined by a second paper on the Law of Armed Conflict—in which Jamie Fellows examines how that branch of the law was applied and developed in the US Army War Crimes Trials in the Philippines in the immediate aftermath of World War II. His paper, which offers a critique of the trials through the ‘just war’ theoretical lens, examines three areas of law that were repeatedly tested throughout those trials, command responsibility and the defences of superior orders and military necessity, to determine what lessons modern commanders can glean from them.

Another casualty of COVID-19 in both 2020 and 2021 was the University’s Annual Criminology Mini-Conference, selected papers from which were published in the JCULR in both 2018 and 2019. This year’s volume does however include a paper in which Tamara Walsh, Robin Fitzgerald, Lucy Cornwell and Cara Scarpato canvass a topic that is closely related to many of those that were previously included through the Mini-Conference—the alternatives to criminalising children under 14 years of age.

Sport, especially professional sport, has also clearly been adversely affected by COVID-19 in the past two years—and that is likely to continue into the future, at least to some extent. Chris Davies explores both the practical and legal effects of government-imposed quarantines and other restrictions, especially on how sporting bodies have had to adapt how they operate, and examines how professional sport’s future activities are likely to be impacted by, or because of, on-going regulation.

One possible potential consequence for international sporting competitions that has been seriously suggested is a restructuring to change how they are organised (and how the clubs and players, in particular, are remunerated). Neil Dunbar examines one such option that was again mooted in 2021—the formation of a European Football Super League. Although the proposal came to nothing he makes the case that it is a salutary reminder to the governing bodies of the need to ensure that all of their stakeholders remain satisfied with the way in which their sports are conducted.

Departing from the COVID theme, Kalmen Datt and Adjunct Professor Robin Woellner review the Full Federal Court’s decision in Pintarich v Deputy Commissioner of Taxation. Described by Professor Bob Deutsch as ‘a case which probably should never have been run,’ its outcome posed a number of problematical technical and ethical issues for taxation practice in Australia—and a result that, in the view of both then ATO Deputy Commissioner Robert Ravenello and then Second Deputy Commissioner Neil Oleson, was a ‘bad look’ for the ATO.

Lastly, Chris Davies has also provided an examination of the Federal Court’s decision in Universal Music Publishing Pty Ltd v Palmer (No 2) in which the issue was whether businessman Clive Palmer had breached Universal Music Publishing Pty Ltd’s copyright in the song ‘We’re not Gonna Take It’ by using parts of its score and a close facsimile of its lyrics in an advertising campaign during the 2019 Federal election. Also at issue, if it was found that he had breached the company’s copyright, was what award of damages was appropriate.

Finally, the Editorial Board would like to take this opportunity, formally, to record our grateful appreciation to all contributors to this, the 27^th volume of the JCULR. The diverse subject areas covered in their individual papers continues the journal’s tradition of welcoming topical submissions from across as broad a spectrum of legal research as possible. We thank them all.

Emeritus Professor Stephen Graw

(for the Editorial Board)